Food companies use fairtrade certification schemes as a sales tool rather than a way to help producers and workers, Trade Union director Frédéric Honegger told just-food on the fringes of food industry summit SIAL in Paris yesterday (19 September).
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“Fair trade labels are being used as a sales point rather than a tool to help growers,” Honegger said. “It’s more important for me to pay producers properly for their crops than to have a label that says my goods are fairly traded.”
For this reason, Honegger’s Madagascar-based spice business has abandoned plans for formal accreditation.
The cost of a one-year accreditation certificate is hard to justify when the money could be spent with producers, Honegger observed.
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